1. They’re deflecting serious questions.
The first thing you notice about someone who’s secretly unhappy is that they’re trying to deflect serious questions, by using sarcasm, humor or being dismissive. Someone who’s unhappy will likely prefer not to talk about anything important that’s going on in their personal lives, mainly because they don’t feel ready to share, or because they feel ashamed.
If you have a good friend that used to tell you everything, and now they’ve stopped confiding in you out of a sudden, it might be because they’re dealing with a lot of dark feelings privately.
And even when you know what they’re dealing with, such as a complicated breakup, their parents’ divorce, or losing their job, they still can’t open up about it. They will joke about it in order to make it seem like it’s not a big deal, but secretly, they’re unhappy.
